Information and support for Windows, DotNetNuke, Microsoft Servers, Microsoft CRM and general technical tips.

Upgrading Steps for DotNetNuke from DNN 4.x.x to DNN 6.x.x

Specifically we wanted to take a version of DotNetNuke from 4.9.1 to 6.1.3 today and actually found that it worked perfectly.

We did take some steps that helped a lot. This may be of value to some of you.

Before we Began

1. Backed up the entire file system for the website.

2. Backed up the database on SQL server for the site in question.

3. Ensured we had a HOST login account that worked.

4. Ensured the server we were running on (Windows 2008 R2) was patched and running .Net Framework version 3.5 SP1.

5. If your site is busy, work out a way to stop the traffic. One way is to add a portal alias, like test.domain.com in your DNN website. Setup a DNS entry to that test.domain.com points to the IP address of your DNN web server. In IIS, setup a Binding, so that test.domain.com will answer for your site.

Then access the site on test.domain.com and check you can login, etc.

Then remove the binding in IIS for www.domain.com (temporarily while you play upgrade).

This way, the site will not answer normal user access, but will answer you when you go to test.domain.com.

If you disabled bindings (from the initial steps 5 above) re-enable them and test access.

DotNetNuke Upgrade Service and Support

We offer a DotNetNuke Support Service that can include the upgrading of DNN websites for you. This is especially useful if you are not confident with either .net websites or IIS server administration.

We are happy to help you evaluate the upgrade path and potential problems. The cost of the service is in effect calculated at at an hourly estimate. It should be noted that if everything goes well, and trouble free, there there is at least 1 hours work in this upgrade, usually more as there are often little bugs to sort out.

Additional References

Author: InteractiveWebs

This blog is the combined blog work of the InteractiveWebs Dev Team. Together we work on a range of DotNetNuke (DNN) applications, modules, Silverlight, and Microsoft CRM Portal integration products.
Our Business is website design and hosting, with a strong focus on DotNetNuke, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Silverlight and iPhone iPad development.
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